"Chain of Command Abyssinia: The French Arrive" Topic
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Tango01 | 26 Dec 2015 12:14 p.m. PST |
"French organisation and tactics had progressed little from those of the Great War, other than to incorporate the use of motor vehicles and armoured fighting vehicles, such as they were at that time. While this might sound somewhat conservative to say the least, the French had effectively created the modern ‘fire and movement' principle, which admittedly with some modification, is still largely used across the world in the present day. France's army was immense, even in peacetime, but with certain exceptions was primarily a training establishment designed to provide basic military instruction to its citizenry. Successive drafts of conscripts would complete their training and then form a huge reserve, the ‘citizen army' which would fight France's future conflicts. New weapons and equipment were planned in light of Germany's re-armament, but in 1935 very little of that planning had been realised in terms of the actual re-equipping of the army. In any case such a roll-out of new materiel over so large a body would take time and money, neither of which the French enjoyed. The army's Instruction Provisoire sur l'Emploi tactique des Grandes Unités of 1921 had barely been modified since its inception. While a new doctrine guide was in preparation in 1935, it would be the following year before it was published and the army fully incorporated new unit types, such as mechanised infantry and anti-tank formations, into its operations. The Provisional Instructions stressed the primacy of infantry, the deliberate massing of artillery to prepare the ground they would be advancing over and very little on manoeuvring to deal with flank attacks and other scenarios. French tactics were those of the steamroller; bombers targeted areas beyond the reach of artillery, the artillery prepared the immediate ground the infantry would advance over and would then move forwards themselves once the infantry had reached and taken their objectives; then the process would begin once more. Tanks were to be deployed as mobile pillboxes, supporting the infantry with their fire…." See here link Free Downloads here… toofatlardies.co.uk/blog Amicalement Armand |
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